Lantana (lm)

Lantana is a 2001 Australian lm, directed by Ray

Lawrence and featuring Anthony LaPaglia, Kerry Armstrong, Georey Rush and Barbara Hershey. It is based
on the play Speaking In Tongues by Andrew Bovell, which
premiered at Sydneys Grin Theatre Company. The
lm won seven AACTA Awards including Best Film and
Best Adapted Screenplay.

who does not answer. Finally, she is seen approaching

a car coming along the road, but never makes it home.
Leon is the investigating detective on the case, and looks
into her oce and notes. Surprised at seeing his wifes
name and le, he takes a recording of their sessions.
Leon arrives home late but Sonja is not asleep: he asks her
about her therapy sessions with Valerie, they discuss their
relationship and he tells her of his aair which had just
ended, but that he still loves her. Sonja is very upset and
feels betrayed. Leon sleeps on the couch, in the morning
Sonja says he'll be lucky if she returns home that night.
Leon goes to Johns house to interrogate him as the main
suspect in his wifes disappearance. Leon starts a discussion about love, marriage and having aairs but lies
to John when asked if he ever had an aair. Leon goes
to Janes house on police duty, because she has placed
a call. Her neighbours are Paula (Daniella Farinacci), a
nurse, and Nik (Vince Colosimo). Jane was up late one
night, watching Nik arrive home and throw something in
the bushes across the road from her house: later she nds
it is a womans shoe. Leon and his partner arrive at Janes
and declare that the shoe was Valeries.

Lantana is set in suburban Sydney and focuses on the

complex relationships between the characters in the lm.
The central event of the lm is the disappearance and
death of a woman whose body is shown at the start of
the lm, but whose identity is not revealed until later. The
lms name derives from the plant Lantana, a weed prevalent in suburban Sydney.

Plot

An unknown womans body is seen caught in the lantana

bush, missing a shoe. Leon (Anthony LaPaglia), a police ocer, and Jane (Rachael Blake) have sex in a motel room. They part ways, and we see that Leon and his
wife Sonja (Kerry Armstrong) attend Latin dance classes
that the recently separated Jane is also taking. Leon does
not enjoy the classes, and is seen savagely beating a drug
dealer during a bust. He has emotional issues, but won't
confront or admit to them. Sonja sees a therapist, Valerie (Barbara Hershey) who has just published a book
on her own daughters murder 18 months ago. She and
her husband, John, (Georey Rush) are barely on speaking terms; he later refers to their marriage as held together
by their grief. She feels threatened by another patient of
hers, Patrick Phelan, who is having an aair with a married man and is forcing Valerie to confront her own issues
in her marriage to John.

The police take Nik to the station and he leaves his children with Jane. Police call Paula to come in from her
work. Neither Nik nor Paula knows that Jane made the
police call. Although Paula does not like Jane, she calls
her to thank her for minding their children. The police
interrogate Nik but he refuses to answer questions about
Valerie, repeatedly asking to see Paula. After seeing his
wife, Nik calms down and talks with Leon and his partner. Valerie had car trouble and Nik was driving past;
he agreed to give her a lift to her home but she panicked
when he took a back road short cut and left his truck. Valerie had run o leaving behind her shoe. Paula goes to
Janes house to get her children, where she tells her that
Nik is innocent of Valeries disappearance. Jane asks how
she knows that, and Paula simply replies that he told her.
Jane asks if she can spend more time with the kids, but
Paula forbids it, after seeing how Jane went over into her
house and tidied it. Leon, his partner, Nik, and John go
to the place where Valerie jumped out of the truck. They
nd her body where she had accidentally fallen down a
ravine. Leon listens to the rest of the therapy tape where
his wife had said that she still loved him and he bursts into
tears.

Hoping to see Leon again, Jane purposely bumps into him

outside the police station, and they have sex again, despite
Leons reservations about taking it any further. Her next
door neighbour, Nik, is upset that she is seeing someone
because he is friends with her estranged husband Pete,
who wants to return home. Jane pairs up with Sonja in
the next salsa class, which angers Leon; he ends their arrangement, which upsets Jane. She invites Nik over for
coee at the behest of his wife, Paula, with whom she
is friendly, and oers him money as they are struggling. Leon returns home and sees his wife outside. Jane salsa
Paula starts to dislike Jane because of it.
dances alone, drinking and smoking, while Pete leaves
Valerie is coming home late one night and drives o the her. Patrick is pained to see his lover happily spending
road. She is stranded, and makes several calls to John, time with his wife and kids. Nik and Paula appear to have
1

recovered from the whole aair, and seem to have been

the only honest and happy people of them all. The movie
ends with Sonja and Leon dancing together seductively.
Leon, who at the beginning of the lm nds dancing with
his wife dicult, now appears to be doing well. He looks
Sonja directly in her eyes and dances just as she always
wanted. Sonja struggles to initially return Leons gaze but
does so just before the movie ends.

EXTERNAL LINKS

the UK on Channel 4 in December 2006. British critic

Philip French described the lm as a thoughtful, gripping movie based around the themes of trust in its various forms, betrayal, forgiveness and grief.[8]

3.3 Accolades

4 See also
2

Cast

Cinema of Australia

Anthony LaPaglia as Leon Zat

Georey Rush as John Knox
Barbara Hershey as Valerie Somers
Kerry Armstrong as Sonja Zat
Rachael Blake as Jane O'May
Vince Colosimo as Nik D'Amato
Russell Dykstra as Neil Toohey
Daniella Farinacci as Paula D'Amato
Peter Phelps as Patrick Phelan
Leah Purcell as Claudia Weis
Glenn Robbins as Pete O'May

3
3.1

[1] http://www.classification.gov.au/Pages/View.aspx?sid=
dvLr2Qbwbhw8mKYjFnlwkg%253d%253d&ncdctx=
clejTJQCwz82Cfd7AgrHDNb8RGgqHQh1NB2utOMJvPUdzf2RrJqrFc4vue
2b7
[2] Lantana (2001)". Box Oce Mojo. Retrieved 17 January
2015.
[3] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=lantana.
htm
[4] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&id=
lantana.htm
[5] http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lantana/
[6] http://www.metacritic.com/movie/lantana

Reception

[7] Ebert, Roger (18 January 2002). Lantana. Chicago

Sun=Times.

Box oce

[8] French, Philip (18 August 2002). Aye, theres the shrub.
The Observer (London). Retrieved 28 December 2010.

Lantana opened on December 14, 2001 in North America in 6 theaters and grossed $66,701 with an average of
$11,116 per theater and ranking #39 at the box oce.
Its widest release was 108 theaters and it ended up earning $4,623,189. The lm earned $11,124,261 internationally (including $6,125,907 in Australia) for a total of
$15,747,450.[3][4]

3.2

5 References

Critical response

Lantana received positive reviews from critics and has a

'certied fresh' score of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes based
on 103 reviews with an average rating of 7.4 out of
10. The critical consensus states Lantana is an intricately plotted character study that quietly shines with
authenticity.[5] The lm also has a score of 84 out of
100 on Metacritic based on 29 critics indicating universal acclaim.[6]
Writer and critic Roger Ebert compared the lm to Short
Cuts and Magnolia in terms of how it developed the connections between the lives of strangers.[7] It premiered in

6 External links
Lantana at the Internet Movie Database
Lantana at the National Film and Sound Archive

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

7.1

Text

Lantana (lm) Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantana_(film)?oldid=671088981 Contributors: Moncrief, JackofOz, David Gerard, Xezbeth, Longhair, Hagerman, Guy Harris, AN(Ger), Commander Keane, Someone42, Ajshm, Dlinga, Pfctdayelise, Design, Tony1,
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